WE GOT not one Juninho letter. Not a single desperate plea to bring the newly unemployed Little Fella back to fill the creative void at the heart of his beloved Boro and sprinkle some magic football pixie dust on the Riverside. No tear-stained and emotional missives with important bits underlined , a lot of UPPER CASE STATEMENTS and more exclamation-marks than the EU punctuation mountain!!!!!
Has Teesside's Cult of Juninho finally died out?
The silence may well be significant. Juninho has been one of the most powerful totemic figures in the club's history and personifies the hopes and ambitions of many of those who cast off the shackles of a barren history and dared to dream back in first flush of the Riverside Revolution. He is a cypher for a period when the cynical armour of emotional self-defence forged in decades of under-achivement was briefly cast aside in favour of genuine optimism. There is a juicy PhD thesis in the complex relationships between Boro fans and the Little Fella, one of the warmest, unconditional and longest lasting loves in the modern game.
So to be honest I expected a lot more of a reaction to the news that the golden oldie three time Boro player, now 34 and pictured how he may look these days, had been sacked by Brazilian club Flamengo following a half-time bust-up with his coach last weekend.
The parmo loving Samba Superstar turned barrack room lawyer first refused to be substituted and then launched a stinging attack on his manager in a changing room set to. Clearly a disruptive influence and with an appalling injury record to boot - and available on a free... he's just crying out to be a Boro signing.
I was braced for letters, anguished phone calls, furious spleen venting at evil Steve McClaren who had driven him out and inept Keith Lamb who had failed to immediately jump on a plane to Rio. I expected a co-ordinated high-profile media campaign with on-line petitions on the No10 website, billboard posters pleading "Juninho IV: Bring Him Home" and a sudden rash of little green and yellow lapel ribbons and charity wristbands.
In the past any hint of his prospective availability has sparked a flurry of activity from the militant wing of the once feared TLF with their extremist demands for the diminuative dream weaver to return and recreate the glory days of Boro's relegation and double Wembley heart-break. The wild-eyed idealists spent his years in exile in Madrid insisting he was a Teessider trapped in a small Brazilian body and desperate to get back for a YK Chow and a pint in the Lingfield. A run of two games without a goal under first Bryan Robson then their arch-Nemisis McClaren would spark a flurry of angry letters insisting he could still do a job and solve Boro's creative deficit.
There was even a bandwagon rolling, albeit unconvincingly, for him to be given the hotseat when McClaren left - "or at least a coaching role" - while as late as deadline day last August I took an impassioned phonecall from a zealot who appeared to be advocating that the Little fella should be signed just as a £30,000 a week benchwarming cheerleader because his mere presence on the sidelines warming up would transform the stadium atmosphere and the teams style by something akin to the mystical process of an alchemist turning base metal into goals.
Now, complete silence. Is that a sign of the post-Riverside Boro crowd's maturity and a conscious rejection of that small time mentality that elevates individual hero worship above support for the team? Or is it a sign that the advancing apathy has now enveloped even the most fanatical and personally motivated sections of the supporting spectrum?
You would hope it is maturity. There was a time when Boro were a small outfit suddenly signing massive players - Barmby, Juninho, Ravanelli, Merson Boksic - and some fans sub-consciously shared the national media's jaundiced view that we had been mistakenly elevated above out station and did not really deserve these stars, that they were bigger than the club and that we were privileged to have them on a short term basis. That hampered Boro, left us in awe of big names who did not perform and indulging mercenaries who did not earn or deserve our respect .
But we are beyond that now. We are a rising club who have won things, who are one of the Premiership's senior members, who have appeared in more knockout finals than anyone outside the big four in the past decade, who have played in a European cup final. We now expect every new signing to come with an impeccable pedigree and to meet expectations that have suffered inflation levels that make the Weimar German economy look like a model of prudence.
And we have won things now, achieved tangible results but have lost the naive and sentimental approach that came with the early, hopeful days at the Riverside. Now the events that illuminate our history are finals and European exploits, not star performers who burned brightly for a short spell to make the dark void of failure bearable. The down side is that we are harder hearted and more demanding. We want results not a media splash on signing and a few fancy tricks and with even the best and most consistent performers coming in for stick as soon as performance levels drop there is little room for a idol adored by all and who is beyond criticism.
Juninho arrived as a virtual unknown and had a stuttering first few months when he struggled with the pace and physicality, then just as he found his feet he took a break for Brazilian Olympic duty . Had he arrived now with that package then swiftly swanned off for an international tournament would he have been given the luxury to return in his own time, settle and show his stuff? Or would he have been written off and hounded from the second half of his first game as Fabio Rochemback and Lee Dong Gook have been? I think he would.
- Post to:
del.icio.us
Digg
Newsvine
Nowpublic
Reddit
« Previous | Home | Next »